Southern Utah at Utah

Pac-12, Rice-Eccles Stadium, Salt Lake City, UT

23rd-ranked Southern Utah come into the season with a dangerous passing attack and a great defense, but more than anything else – if they’re anything like they were last season – they’re not going to screw up. Utah isn’t going to get any easy chances against the team that led the FCS in turnover margin.

However, the Thunderbirds aren’t going to do enough against the Utah ground game that’ll ease the offense into the season by pounding away. The O line is the Utes’ biggest strength – or close to it – allowing new starting QB Troy Williams time to operate.

The defense will keep this from ever being too scary, but it’ll still be a bit of a fight against a Southern Utah defense that won’t let this get out of hand. The Utes will get what they need going into the showdown against BYU, but they’ll need to work into the second half to breath easily.

UC Davis at Oregon

Uh oh. Oregon is paying for a scrimmage, and that’s what it’s going to get.

Oregon needs a warm-up before hosting Virginia and going to Nebraska, and they’ll be able to do whatever they want to against a UC Davis team with a questionable run defense coming into the season.

New Oregon quarterback Dakota Prukop just has to get the ball out of his hands in a hurry and let his high-octane skill players do the rest. The Aggies have a good passing game and should get a few good drives in late, but they’ll blink and be down big. The Ducks should be able to relax in the second quarter and start working in the reserves to see how all the pieces fit.

Eastern Washington at Washington State

Eastern Washington led the FCS in passing yards last season, throwing for 353 yards per game, even though Vernon Adams was slinging it for Oregon.

Ranked 17th in the preseason Coaches Poll, the Eagles should be even more dangerous offensively this season thanks to the return of QB Jordan West and WR Cooper Kupp – who caught 114 passes for 1,642 yards and 19 touchdowns last season.

There was one problem, though, with last season’s team – it wasn’t even remotely close to stopping anyone with an offense.

The Eagles were a nightmare against the run, but they didn’t do much against the better passing teams, either. Get ready for Washington State to do what Washington State does, with Luke Falk putting up over 400 yards without breathing hard in a wild and fun shootout. The Cougar secondary is good enough to keep this under control, but the Eagles will have their moments.

Northern Arizona at Arizona State

10:45 PM, Pac-12 Network, Sun Devil Stadium, Tempe, AZ

The Lumberjacks of Northern Arizona came up with a good 2015 thanks to the most efficient passing game in the FCS and most dangerous offenses. Sophomore QB Case Cookus has the talent to bomb away against the okay ASU secondary and keep up in a possible shootout. Ranked 18th to start the season, this is a very, very dangerous NAU team – in the FCS.

As good as they were last year, the Lumberjacks also lost to Arizona 77-13 and got ripped apart by anyone who could throw a forward pass. They’ll get in their yards, but Manny Wilkins and the Sun Devils will crank out huge numbers in a shootout game to get ready for an even more explosive date with Texas Tech next week.